AhDammit:It's their fault. They've allowed crude prices to rise to a point where extraction is cost effective. If prices dropped to $60 a barrel, oil companies are going to be a lot less willing to spend money to extract from shale.

What could destroy them is the cost of shale extraction going down (it will) and enough production to crash crude prices. If China ramps up their operations the Saudis will be pretty much fscked. The best part about it is that they will have done it to themselves, and could have prevented it. Stupid and greedy is a poor combination.

Crude will need to crash to below about $55/barrel before Saudi even starts to hurt. It will take some major improvements in shale extraction before it will be a viable enterprise with Oil at that price point, and even then a lot of Shale extractors would probably look to dial back production and wait until oil goes back up a bit rather than drain their wells at just above break-even.

It's their fault. They've allowed crude prices to rise to a point where extraction is cost effective. If prices dropped to $60 a barrel, oil companies are going to be a lot less willing to spend money to extract from shale.

What could destroy them is the cost of shale extraction going down (it will) and enough production to crash crude prices. If China ramps up their operations the Saudis will be pretty much fscked. The best part about it is that they will have done it to themselves, and could have prevented it. Stupid and greedy is a poor combination.

95629:I don't get why were doing this. Shouldn't we use nothing but Middle eastern oil?

Use it all up. Eliminate their power over us as quickly as possible. Save ours for when it's expensive and really valuable.

When only one country in the world has oil left, it'd be nice if it was the US and not some country like Saudi Arabia.

You would have to nationalize the oil industry to do that. At the moment the extracted oil doesn't belong to America, it belongs to whichever oil company extracted it and they will sell it wherever they can make the most profit.

95629:I don't get why were doing this. Shouldn't we use nothing but Middle eastern oil?

Use it all up. Eliminate their power over us as quickly as possible. Save ours for when it's expensive and really valuable.

When only one country in the world has oil left, it'd be nice if it was the US and not some country like Saudi Arabia.

That's a nice thought but global commodities don't work like that. Currently, the majority of the oil we consume comes from Canada and Mexico, with Venezuala and other oil exporters filling in the voids of supply.Our friends to the north have been oil independent for years...it's not a big whoop as that suddenly doesn't make oil über cheap.

Chuck Wilder, who runs local bookstore Broadway Books, says he remembers the oil shocks of the 1970s, when OPEC "held the U.S. hostage" over oil.Now, he says, the Saudis "need to get used to the idea that they're not the only ones with oil." As for the royal family feeling fear? "It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch."